


A place of safety; a place of comfort

by Dulcet_coffee



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon Universe, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares, One Shot, Sharing a Bed, Slice of Life, Tea, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26823103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dulcet_coffee/pseuds/Dulcet_coffee
Summary: Levi finds solace in his Commander's quarters
Relationships: Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 12
Kudos: 145





	A place of safety; a place of comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Tooth rotting fluff causes serious dental problems be warned

The grim reaper never forgets to visit the scouting legion. Like morbid presents, he picks out fates and deaths carefully for every last member, and watches in a silent rapture as they each open their gifts and resign to them. Some open them immediately, lost in a haze of green inexperience and yearnings for honour. Others untie the strings with a seasoned carefulness that only slows down their inevitable demise.

Usually, he visits during the expeditions, to dish out platters of quick but painful deaths to those who wish to grab a serving. And sometimes after the missions too, to grant rest to those suffering from wounds or hypothermia and all else.

And when he takes his long awaited leave, the scouting legion lays silent. An empty husk of what they once were, of what they could've been.

Levi chose to open his present slowly.

Some could say he's blessed with that decision, yet it weighs like a curse on his shoulders. He walks through a corridor, looking left and right at the silhouettes of those he'd left behind. Farlan and Isabel lay disembodied in a room here, and nameless soldiers he wasn't quick enough to save in the other. Petra and Oruo and Eld and Gunther lie in a pile with eyes open yet unseeing. He never stops to look at them, not long enough to actually process who they really are and why they are there.

Because in front, marches a lone man. He holds a lantern, enough to see the here and now and leave a hint of the past touched, yet not adequate to light the future. And yet he marches, with a hand reaching blindly in the darkness, and Levi has never once doubted following him.

They walk through the dark together, and although Levi lets himself look back a few times the man never falters and trains his gaze forward. Until he starts turning his head just so, just a little, when Levi can catch a peek of hooded eyes trailing into the open doors surrounding them, as if noting their presence for the first time. It turns into a frenzy, where he stares at the dead bodies without reserve and Levi notices in muted horror the empty space where his right arm should be. They begin running, and Levi shouts after him but the man only trips and falls into the unseeing void ahead. Levi runs up to it, collapses, calls into the abyss before a thrum of grief shakes through and slaps him.

He opens his eyes and sits up with heaving breaths. He's in his bedroom. Despite the snow outside, the air is too dense and stifling. He looks at his hands and feels the skin hot and clammy, and when he lays a palm on his heart it beats ripe. A few breaths, and it slows.

He looks at the window, to see the cusp of a moon peaking from the edges of clouds tainted blue from the black sky. It's only night. He cards his fingers through his hair and tries to think back on his dream, to remember anything but a mere string of what shook him so much. A few concepts run through his head, and with that a bone deep weariness overtakes his mind.

He stands up, muscles aching from sleeping in an awkward posture. The thin, measly blanket is straightened and Levi puts on boots and a jacket to chase the new found cold from his limbs. He leaves the room, walks through the corridors, dark but lit by a few sconces bearing a fluttery, weak kind of fire light. The airy stone hallways seem even colder, and he crosses his arms and shrinks a little. He doubts anyone would be up at this time wandering through the officer's barracks, so he lets himself throw off his usual demeanour. He takes a left, and sees a lone door that still has light streaming like water from a gap. In a gilded copper plate, are the words engraved _COM. Erwin Smith._ He twists the handle without knocking.

Only a lone candle sits on the desk to illuminate the area. It's dying, nearly licking at the welted wax laying in the bottom of its holder. But it's enough to see the room, and the room is empty.

Levi shuts the door carefully and walks towards Erwin's writing desk, where they have spent many a night writing away in silence till the sun rose. The chair has been pushed back messily, and the seemingly last touched document has been interrupted partway with a smearing of ink and glob of drool. Levi rolls his eyes.

He leans a little and puffs a breath onto the candle, smothering its dying trembling and cushioning the room with a blanket of darkness once more. He then turns to an adjoining door, which has been left gaping.

Tentatively, he pushes it open some more and peaks inside. The room is ill-decorated, with a bedside table and a bed that looks only a little more plush than Levi's own. There's a hearth lit with a softly crackling fire, which offers a soft warm light in the sea of blue spilling from a small window. But while those are all interesting sights, perhaps the most prominent feature in the room is the giant lump wrapped up in blankets.

Levi watches its sides rise and fall with a rhythmic breathing, before pushing off the doorway and walking gingerly to the bedside. He takes off his boots and places them alongside the pair already sitting by, sorting them neatly at the foot of the bed frame. His jacket follows, and by that time the lump has stopped its even breathing and reared its head out from the blankets.

“Levi?” Erwin yawns, looking at him with eyes unfocused with fatigue.

“Oi.” He pushes Erwin a little. “Move up.”

The large body is still for a bit, before registering Levi's poking and Erwin shuffles up to leave space for the other. They're both still clad in the usual dress shirts and uncomfortable pants, to help lessen the chill from Winter somewhat. Levi crawls into the bed and snatches a corner of the blanket to wrap himself with.

He settles for a bit, before pausing and feeling Erwin's arms envelop him in a strong embrace from behind.

“You're cold.” Erwin mumbles, voice still husky with sleep.

“No, you're just a human furnace.”

Erwin seizes with a few held back chuckles, and Levi melts in the warmth of it all. The fire, the bed and Erwin all equate to a sum much more welcome than his own desolate quarters, where his memory is left to its own devices and the air does not warm.

“I was wondering when you'll turn up.” He admits, breath softly stirring Levi's hair. Levi lays silent for a bit, letting his eyes droop closed.

“I decided to try sleeping in my own bed for once, but some dream shook me awake and I decided it's not time yet.”

“What do you mean, 'for once'? You only come here after expeditions, not everyday.”

“Still too much.” He murmurs, and curls his legs to a little closer to his chest. “Grown men shouldn't come crawling into each other's beds after a nightmare.”

“Levi. You know that's not the case.”

Levi shrugs, and they bask in a comfortable silence that does not come often. It's a ritual, he guesses. They have been through so much together, that there comes a naked closeness where they can just exist and watch the world sail by. But Levi can almost hear the cogs turning in Erwin's mind, his brain working in feverish calculations and generating thoughts so he knows a question is coming before it's even asked.

“What happened in the dream, if I may ask?”

It's a gentle question, as if it's spoken more to a frightened cat than a war hardened soldier.

“I think it had to do something with death, it had that kind of sadness to it.” He shrugged and tried his best to remember fragments. “It was confusing, things happened that haven't happened in reality.”

“Like what?” The reply was soft.

“I think...” Levi shifted. “I think your arm was gone. And you died at the end, but not before turning half mad. It's like you just realised all your comrades died.”

Another bout of peaceful quiet followed. But Levi felt Erwin's mouth turn against his hair, in that smile he always wore behind closed doors.

“You know that won't happen. I won't let that happen. I'm right here, you can feel my heartbeat. And as for my arm, well...” He moved both arms, embracing Levi tighter and nearly squashing him in the process. “I think it's still here.”

Levi nodded, and he felt his mind ease into a calmness not unlike a still pool of water. But something was still there, something not yet quietened. He felt restless, unfit for sleep.

“Erwin.”

“Hmm?”

“I can't sleep.”

“Not many can after expeditions,” He felt Erwin slip away and turned to see him propped up on an elbow. They were still close, the size of the bed not permitting for much space to separate them. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

“No, I think that's too much.”

“How about some tea, then?”

Levi looked up into the man's eyes and saw them brimming with mirth.

“Only if you make it.”

Another chuckle, but the man soon spun around and carefully stepped out of the bed. Levi watched in the relative darkness as he walked unsteadily, still dreary with sleep, up and out of the room. His clothes were wrinkled, and he wore no socks.

As soon as he had left, and Levi heard the boiling of water, he grabbed the blankets and shifted to the centre of the bed, where he could feel a strong heat radiating. He briefly wondered how someone can produce that much warmth, as he stared holes into the black ceiling.

There was some time before Erwin returned, but Levi felt he didn't mind much. A static, calming sound of crackling fire soothed him, and the room felt familiar, not at all stranger. When he turned his head, to look out the small window, he could see the whisking of snowflakes being thrown around by the wind, the white frost contrasting with the dark of the night.

He stared at the scene until he heard the door creak and Erwin shuffled in, holding two steaming tea cups.

“Nudge over,” He sat down on the side of the bed, near the foot. When Levi snaked out of the blankets to sit next to him, Erwin handed him one of the cups. He took a quick sniff of it, before sipping quietly.

“Chamomile?” He asked, tasting the sweetness of the tea. Erwin took a sip next to him.

“Yes.” He nodded, brushing the cup's sides with a wandering thumb. “It's good for sleep, or so you've told me.”

Levi felt some amusement in that, and a soft endearment for the man remembering.

“That's right.”

It was thin, and had a honey-like aroma, and burned Levi's core warmly while they watched the outside world freeze in the grips of Winter. They probably won't do much training tomorrow, he reflected, and the recruits would grow just a little winter fat while the season lasted.

He brought the cup to his lips as he thought of training exercise to get them back into shape come Spring. Yeager and Kirschstein's complaining appeared in his mind so easily it was almost palpable.

They finished their teas rather quickly, from a midnight thirst Levi'd imagine, and it wasn't a moment too soon that he saw Erwin returning back into the room from having put the tea cups away.

They settled back into their old positions, of closeness and proximity, and Levi felt his eyelids were heavy with sleep forcing its way into his head. Erwin's tired breathing had already settled into a deep, slow rhythm and his heart beat steadily on. An occasional snore vibrated through him, and Levi smiled softly to himself, snuggling deeper into the blankets, letting his mind open to dreams and serenity.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! :)


End file.
